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Dijkstra's library

Dijkstra's home in Nuenen — anno January 2011 — contained a large collection of scientific books, booklets, papers, manuscripts, etc. A large part of that collection is now archived by me in Leuven and will be discussed on this page. For the complete inventory, see below.

College books, early 1950s.

Starting with Dijkstra's years as a student in physics at the university of Leiden, most (if not all) of his notebooks from university are preserved.

Here are some of the Dutch courses Dijkstra followed in Leiden, translated into English:

Chemistry, Inorganic Chemistry, Physical Chemistry, Organic Chemistry

Calculus I and II

Physics I and II

Function theory I

Mathematical theory of Relativity

Analytical Geometry I, II, III

Thermodynamics

Logic

Measure and integration theory

Relativity theory

Descriptive Geometry

Electrodynamics

Newtonian Mechanics, Statistical Mechanics

Of particular interest is Dijkstra's notes on "Logic". What did he learn as a student in Leiden about logic? A quick glance through his notes reveals that the course was about Socrates, Plato, Aristoteles --- that is, no modern logic seems to have been covered in that course.

Books by E.T. Bell

Dijkstra was inspired by Eric Temple Bell (1883-1960). The following books of him are part of my collection:

E.T. Bell, Men of Mathematics: Volume I, First published in 1937. Published in Penguin Books, 1953.

E.T. Bell, Men of Mathematics: Volume II, First published in 1937. Published in Penguin Books, 1953.

Dijkstra started citing Bell frequently during the mid-1970s, for example in EWD512 and EWD682. In that latter EWD, Dijkstra explicitly referred to:

E.T. Bell, The Development of Mathematics, McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York-London, 1945.

How did Bell's work influence Dijkstra's thinking?

When visiting Dijkstra's home in Nuenen in January 2011, the shelves in Dijkstra's office were still packed with books. Stacked against the walls were several boxes which Dijkstra had sent to his home in Nuenen from Texas (in 1999/2000). Even very personal information, such as his medical dossier, was still in his office.

With the permission from Edsger W. Dijkstra's family, I was allowed to empty a large part of his office. In total, I took with me 16 boxes of Edsger W. Dijkstra's original possessions. The contents of those boxes are listed on this page.

Inventory

When visiting Dijkstra's home in Nuenen in January 2011, the shelves in Dijkstra's office were still packed with books. Stacked against the walls were several boxes which Dijkstra had sent to his home in Nuenen from Texas (in 1999/2000). Even very personal information, such as his medical dossier, was still in his office.

With the permission from Edsger W. Dijkstra's family, I was allowed to empty a large part of his office. In total, I took with me 16 boxes of Edsger W. Dijkstra's original possessions. The contents of those boxes are listed on this page.

S.A. Schuman (ed), New Directions in Algorithmic Languages, Prepared for IFIP Working Group 2.1 on ALGOL, Published by Institut de Recherche D'informatique et D'automatique: Domaine de Voluceau, Rocquencourt, 1976.

F. Goebel, R.P. Nederpelt, The Number of Numerical Outcomes of Iterated Powers, Reprinted from the American Mathematical Monthly, Vol. 78, No. 10, December 1971.

The Function Prec. A ten-page document.

S. Gorn, Processors for Infinite Codes of the Shannon-Fano Type, reprinted from the Proceedings of the Symposium on Mathematical Theory of Automata, Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, April 24-26, 1962.

S. Gorn, Explicit Definitions and Linguistic Dominoes, The Moore School of Electrical Engineering. Reprinted from Systems and Computer Science, edited by J.F. Hart and S. Takasu. Published in Canada 1967 in Association with the University of Western Ontario by the University of Toronto Press as the Proceedings of a Conference held at the University of Western Ontario, September 10-11, 1965.

A.W. Holt, Some Theoretizing of Memory Structure and Information Retrieval, Applied Data Research, Inc., 4 October 1963. This paper is an edited version of an invited talk presented at the ACM National Conference, Denver, Colorado, 1963, under the title: Programmed Memory Organization and Data Bases for Retrieval.

A.W. Holt, A Mathematical Model of Continuous Discrete Behavior, Massachusetts Computer Associates, Inc., 11 November 1980. A semi-final draft of a paper. It is enclosed with a letter to Dijkstra.

D.T. Ross, Uniform Referents: An Essential Property for a Software Engineering Language, SofTech, Inc, Massachusetts. To be presented at the Third International Symposium on Computer and Information Science (COINS-69) in Florida, December 1969.

J. Schwartz, Set theory as a language for program specification and program ..., Preliminary draft - first part.

J.R. Searle, Stated Meeting Report: Is There a Crisis in American Higher Education?, 24-47.

M. Sintzoff, Suggestions for Composing and Specifying Program Design Decisions, Report R421, MBLE Research Laboratory, February 1980. Presented at the 4th International Symposium on Programming, Paris, April 1980.

M.V. Wilkes, D.J. Wheeler, S. Gill, The Preparation of Programs for an Electronic Digital Computer -- with special reference to the EDSAC and the use of a library of subroutines, Addison-Wesley Press, 1951. The book contains some notes written by Dijkstra.

N. Wirth, Compilerbouw, Academic Press, 1987. The Dutch version of the book.

A.P. Yerschov, G.I. Kozhukhin, U.M. Voloshin, Input Language for Automatic Programming Systems, authorized translation from the Russian with an introduction by R.W. Hockney. Published for the Automatic Programming Information Centre, Brighton College of Technology, England. Academic Press, 1963. Enclosed with a letter to Dijkstra by Richard Goodman, 4 April 1963.

Identiteitskaart, Rijksuniversiteit Leiden, studiejaar 1955/56. With a picture of the young Dijkstra.

2-page official document of the Technische Hogeschool Eindhoven, 1979. The document states Dijkstra's achievements until 1977.

Donorkaart voor het Nederlandsche Roode Kruis Bloedtransfusiedienst. Contains a picture of the young Dijkstra and the dates (up til 1969) when he donated his blood to the Red Cross. Enclosed with an official thank you certificate of the Red Cross.

Legitimatie kaart van de Technische Hogeschool Eindhoven. A card announcing that Dijkstra has public access to the buildings of the Technische Hogeschool Eindhoven. With a picture of Dijkstra.

Official letter of N.V. Philips' Computer Industrie, 15 November 1967. Signed by J. Berghuis. The invitation is to discuss the P2000 family.

P.G. Neumann, R.S. Fabry, K.N. Levitt, L. Robinson, J.H. Wensley, On the Design of a Provably Secure Operating System, Stanford Research Institute, to be presented at the International Workshop on Protection in Operating Systems, IRIA, Paris, 13-14 August 1974.

E.T. Bell, Men of Mathematics, Volume One: The lives and achievements of Archimedes, Descartes, Fermat, Pascal, Newton, Leibniz, Gauss, and other famous mathematicians of history. A Pelican Book. First published 1937, published in Penguin Books 1953.

E.T. Bell, Men of Mathematics, Volume Two: The lives and achievements of Lobatchewsky, Abel, Hamilton, Boole, Riemann, Poincare, Cantor, and other famous mathematicians of history. A Pelican Book. First published 1937, published in Penguin Books 1953.